


At a Crossroads

by anachronism



Category: Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 16:48:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4529589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anachronism/pseuds/anachronism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What teenage boy wouldn't sell their soul for a car? (Or give away their firstborn, as it were.)</p>
<p>(You do not need to know anything about Supernatural to read this fic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	At a Crossroads

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://www.because-sterek.tumblr.com/post/125812479591/the-jeep-is-not-dead) tumblr post.
> 
> For those of you who care, I'm futzing with the SPN timeline a ~~little~~ lot. But. Eh.

He breaks down right next to a crossroads.

Stiles curses. It’s getting late and he’s in the middle of nowhere. His cell phone doesn’t have any service and the last outpost of civilization is at least ten miles back. He’s surrounded by rows of neatly cultivated agriculture and there are no other cars in sight.

He sighs and gets out to raise the hood anyway, mostly as a signal of distress, and stares blankly at the engine. He can think of at least ten different things that could be wrong, but he has no way to be sure. Even if he did, he has no way to fix it.

He’d be better off with a flat tire. Why couldn’t it have been a flat tire?

There’s a soft puttering of a motor and Stiles raises his head to look around, but the roads stretched out around him are long, flat, and empty. A green ATV appears in the orchard to his right, driven by a figure in a wide-brimmed hat. Stiles waves at it and shouts, hoping he’ll be noticed. To his relief, the ATV diverts it course and pulls up alongside his Jeep.

“Hey,” the driver greets, cheerful. “Car trouble?”

“And phone.” Stiles waves his cell around to demonstrate. “I need service so I can call some people. Can you help me?”

The driver steps off her vehicle. Her leg does a graceful lift and swivel to clear the seat (and seriously, who wears shorts that short while working on a farm?). She has strawberry-blonde hair (he’d recognize that color anywhere) tied back in a braid that reaches her waist, and it dances around her as she walks. When she’s standing next to Stiles, he can see the spray of freckles that decorate her nose and cheekbones, a testament to the amount of time she spends in the sun without her hat. “Let me take a look? I know a thing or two about cars. Maybe we can save you some trouble.”

Stiles blinks at her and then motions at the Jeep with the universal gesture for ‘all yours’.

She smiles at him and leans over the engine, testing tubes here and there.

“I’m Stiles,” he offers, to fill the silence.

“Call me Cathy.” She stands back up. “Good news Stiles. I think I can fix your engine.”

“Yeah? That’s great!”

“I just need something from you in exchange.”

“Of course.” Stiles digs into his pocket, grabbing his wallet. “I have money. Cash. Obviously.”

She stops him with a gentle touch to his arm. “I’m not interested in money.”

He looks back up to find that their faces are suddenly very close to each other. “Um?” he articulates.

She laughs a little and leans back to give him his personal space. “What would you say if I told you your Jeep never has to break down again?”

“That would be seriously awesome,” he admits, “but unfortunately, impossible.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“Right. How? With magic?”

Cathy gives him a look that says more than it really should. And because Stiles has been around the block a few times, he doesn’t dismiss her out of hand. He narrows his eyes. “Alright, I’ll bite. What are you?”

She laughs again, clear and unrestrained. “How delightful, to run into someone so aware, all the way out here.” Her eyes flash yellow. And it’s not just the pupil. For a moment it looks as though someone removed her eyeballs and replaced them with yellow glass. “Does it matter?”

“It might, if I’m going to believe you’re capable of what you say you are.”

“Species is no guarantee of competency.”

“Fine,” he allows. “Prove it to me.”

She lays a hand on the engine and his Jeep sputters to life.

“Impressive. And in exchange?”

“Just a favor. Ten years from now I find you, and you give me something. It won’t be much, hardly a trifle. And you won’t even notice it’s gone.” She leans into his personal space again and Stiles catches a whiff of earth and citrus and the slightest hint of sulfur. “What do you say?”

Stiles bends backward to keep his distance and flails when he overestimates his center of gravity. “What are you doing?”

She grins. Her teeth are shockingly white. “We need to kiss in order to seal the deal.”

“Right.” Stiles takes a full two steps back. “Sorry Cathy. I don’t know much about magic, but what I do know is that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

She frowns at him, opens her mouth to argue, but then her eyes flash again and her body starts disintegrating from her feet up. “No!” she screams, furious. In the next breath she collects herself. “Summoners have the _worst_ timing.”

Funnily enough, her outburst convinces Stiles that he made the right choice. He watches until she’s gone, then sighs quietly to himself.

When he turns around, though, his Jeep is still running.

He takes it for what it is, and jumps back in, determined to get as far as he can before the magic runs out.

He makes it all the way to Beacon Hills.

He spends the next few weeks waiting for his Jeep to break down.

He runs his Jeep into a tree, and it comes out of the encounter unscathed. (Even if he can’t say the same for himself.) He finds that his trips between gas stations are longer. He no longer has to bring his Jeep to the mechanic for service. Occasionally it acts up, but only in areas heavily saturated with energy.

Stiles does his research. Eventually he comes up with enough evidence to state confidently that Cathy was a demon, and while she didn’t seem to be making the traditional demon deal, he knows that even the supernatural evolves with the times. He doesn’t care about what she wanted. He’s just glad he didn’t give it to her.

He figures she was summoned away before she got the chance to remove whatever magic she used on his Jeep. It isn’t perfect. They didn’t seal the deal. But…

Stiles will always remember the time he encountered a demon and came out ahead.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://www.anachronismsworld.tumblr.com).


End file.
